Prosecutors have released audio of phone calls placed from the jailhouse by Michael Dunn, the man who fatally shot 17-year-old Jordan Davis after a confrontation over loud music, giving insight into the 47-year-old's thoughts and feelings prior to the high-profile trial.
The tapes portray a disturbing train of thought, from Dunn comparing himself to a rape victim to implying that Davis' three friends in the car had to be criminals. But perhaps the most revealing sentiment were his comments during one conversation with his fiancé.
"I'm the [expletive] victim. I was the one who was victimized," Dunn said. "I'm the victor but I was the victim too."
He also seemed skeptical that the teens in the car with Davis didn't have a criminal record.
"When the police said that these guys didn't have a record I was like, you know, I wonder if they were just flying under the radar. Because they were bad."
In a separate conversation, Dunn makes a curious connection between his case and that of a rape victim.
“I was the one that was being preyed upon and I fought back. It’s not quite the same but it made me think of like the old TV shows and movies where like how the police used to think when a chick got raped going, 'Oh, it’s her fault because of the way she dressed.' I'm like, 'So it’s my fault (laughing) because I asked them to turn their music down. I got attacked and I fought back because I didn’t want to be a victim and now I'm in trouble. I refused to be a victim and now I'm incarcerated.”
Dunn was found guilty of attempted murder for shooting into a carful of teenagers, however, the jury was unable to reach a verdict on the charge for murder and a mistrial was declared. Each charge carried a sentence of 20 years, adding to 60 years total. Prosecutors have indicated that they plan to retry Dunn for the first-degree murder charge.
Dunn's comments in the nine phone calls echo several sentiments in letters he wrote in jail ranting about killing "thugs" so "they take the hint and change their behavior," black-on-white crime and the liberal media.
In a letter to his grandmother, Dunn wrote:
The jail is full of blacks and they all act like thugs. This may sound a bit radical but if more people would arm themselves and kill these (expletive) idiots, when they're threatening you, eventually they may take the hint and change their behavior.
After the verdict was announced Saturday, Davis' parents said they are awaiting Dunn's retrial and are happy to have some closure.
“It has been a long, long road, and we’re so very happy to have a little bit of closure,” Davis' mother, Lucia McBath, said in response to the verdict. “It’s sad for Mr. Dunn that he will live the rest of his life in that sense of torment, and I will pray for him.”
"We do not accept a law that would allow collateral damage to our family members," Davis' father Ron said. "We expect the law to be behind us, and protect us. That’s what I wanted the law to do — to protect Jordan as we protected Jordan.”